Headshots are a Canucks Army feature where we link to the day's freshest news, and other assorted Canucks web-goodies. If you've written a blogpost, produced a tribute video or birthed a clever .gif into existence - please e-mail me at thom.drance@gmail.com.

Sami Salo credits the Canucks improved defense with their recent run of success. He tells the National Post that the team has been successful because they've been "cutting down our scoring chances [against]." Interesting, right?

From Saturday, Tony Gallagher praises the current Canucks core and urges Canucks fans to enjoy it. Enjoy it? How can one expect us to enjoy watching this Canucks team when Dale Weise plays on the fourth line, and loses all of the fights... Funny detail in this piece: Gallagher praises: the Canucks star power, offensive proficiency, two solid goaltenders, defensive prowess, the quality of the management and of the ownership. Basically everything about the organization, except the team's coaching. Even when he's effusive in his praise of the Canucks, Gallagher manages to, by omission, sneak in a critical nugget. Love it.

Thomas Drance lives in Toronto, eats spicy food and writes about hockey. He is the editor in chief of the Nation Network (a.k.a Overlord), and an opinionated blowhard to boot. You can follow him on twitter @thomasdrance.

1. The Rangers goal was scored by Chris Higgins (1st goal of the year - after being traded for Gomez in the off-season).
2. Rick Rypien (RIP) scored for the Canucks and had zero PIM
3. Samuelsson scored twice for the Canucks.
4. Canucks must have been expecting a goon-fest. They had Rypien, Glass, Hordichuk and O'Brien dressed.
5. Matthieu Schneider played for the Canucks that game.
6. Canucks who played in this game who are no longer with team:
a. Bernier
b. Ehrhoff
c. Glass
d. Hordichuk
e. Mitchell
f. O'Brien
g. Pettinger
h. Rypien
i. Samuelsson
j. M. Schneider
k. Wellwood
l. Raycroft (starting goalie)
7. Luongo was out with an injury - other Canuck scratches were Aaron Rome and Mario Bliznak.

By traditional metrics, Tim Tebow is not a good quarterback. Instead of his success being a statistical improbability, is it possible that the traditional metrics don't properly measure what Tim Tebow does well? He's a fantastic runner, making the Broncos superb on third down conversions, and the team's focus on running the ball all game wears down the defence until they have nothing left in the fourth quarter.

There's two responses when a team or player does not fit into expected statistical categories: you can assume that the statistics are right and the team or player is getting lucky or you can investigate the statistics to see if something needs to be adjusted.

I doubt that's the case with the Wild, simply because we have examples of other teams doing exactly what the Wild are doing and we've seen what happens. With Tebow, I don't think we have a previous player that fits what he does.

@Steve thanks for that man. Hilarious.
@Daniel interesting. I'm not really a football stats guy (I rarely watch it unless I'm drinking... or hungover), and haven't read much about Tebow really, so I was just going off of assumed conventional wisdom. Ass of u and me, and such.

By traditional metrics, Tim Tebow is not a good quarterback. Instead of his success being a statistical improbability, is it possible that the traditional metrics don't properly measure what Tim Tebow does well? He's a fantastic runner, making the Broncos superb on third down conversions, and the team's focus on running the ball all game wears down the defence until they have nothing left in the fourth quarter.

There's two responses when a team or player does not fit into expected statistical categories: you can assume that the statistics are right and the team or player is getting lucky or you can investigate the statistics to see if something needs to be adjusted.

I doubt that's the case with the Wild, simply because we have examples of other teams doing exactly what the Wild are doing and we've seen what happens. With Tebow, I don't think we have a previous player that fits what he does.

Yes. Tebow is extraordinarily good in both Touchdown to Interception ratio and net yardage per touch. The first one is the first thing I look at when measuring a QB's effectiveness.

However, much of Tebow's success comes from late game-winning drives. We know that Pythagoras doesn't like close wins, in any sport.

I agree that most of Tebow's success comes in the fourth quarter and that he has been getting extraordinarily lucky. There's no way his luck will continue. But is it possible that his team's style of play lends itself to fourth quarter success? As I suggested above, does their running game wear out a defence and make them more vulnerable late in the game?

I'm not saying this is the case, I just think it's something worth looking into. Tebow fascinates me because he flies in the face of some very traditional football metrics and may require an overhaul of commonly accepted truths about football.

I found this article on Sports Illustrated, for instance, quite interesting, as they advocate for a more well-rounded way of rating a quarterback and argue that Tebow's success is not a fluke or a miracle, but that Tebow has just plain outperformed almost every quarterback he's faced: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/kerry_byrne/11/29/tim.tebow/index.html?sct=nfl_bf3_a7

It has its flaws, but at least the guy's trying to find an explanation that makes sense rather than just assuming that it's all pure luck or that he "just wins" or some other nonsense.

Then again, Tebow may crash and burn and prove all of his doubters completely right. Who knows?